John Brown: His Fight For Freedom (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
After reading Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States, I was facinated by John Brown. It's nice to see him introduced to children as someone who had an impact on American history. There is certainly some biased language in this book and the level of the vocabulary is about 5th grade. This is not a picture book for younger children. The content is too advanced for kids below 5th grade. Let me just say that I think it's awesome that there's a children's book about the Godfather of political terrorism. John Brown is a hugely important American, and one about whom it is impossible to make the facile generalizations characteristic of children's biography. To write a book for children about such a thorny figure takes huevos. That said, the book is sort of meh. It adopts the children's book convention of calling the subject by first name, which makes for a sort of intimacy that I don't buy. John Brown is fascinating partly because he has this kind of grand, Old Testament inaccessibility. He's not a regular guy - he's not our pal John, just like me and you (at least, I hope you're not like that). "John thought slavery was wrong" doesn't cut it.
What do You think about John Brown: His Fight For Freedom (2009)?
